Jabulani Jonny

Well the time has come again for us to head back up to Philadelphia for Elliot’s second heart surgery.  We were originally thinking that it would be in January, but his O2 saturations have remained lower than where the doctors would like so we’ve moved the surgery up a bit.  For some history, Elliot was diagnosed with HLHS before birth and had his first heart surgery at 6 days old.  It’ll take two more, including the one on Friday, to get his heart to a stable state. 

Sunette and I have mixed emotions about this surgery.  We’re eager for it to get here, hoping that it will be the answer to Elliot’s nagging issues with his O2 sats and a few other things.  Maybe he can finally live like a normal little boy and stay out of the hospital for a while.  On the other hand, we’re very nervous about this procedure.  Besides the fact that it’s another open heart surgery, on a 4 month old, we’re worried how his lungs are going to react to this one. 

See, one of the issues with him all along has been that his lungs have increased pressure in them, which makes it difficult for the blood to flow to his lungs.  In turn making it difficult for his body to get the oxygen it needs.  Right now, he has a shunt connecting the aorta to the pulmonary arteries, so every time his heart beats to send blood to the body, part of it goes to the lungs.  So he actually has his heart pumping blood to the lungs right now.  In the surgery on Friday they will remove the shunt and connect the blood flow coming back from his upper body to the pulmonary arteries so that the blood simply drains into the lungs, rather than being pumped there.  The problem is, if he has increased pressure in his lungs, the blood may not go there, meaning he won’t get enough oxygen.

So that’s our concern.  We won’t know until well after the surgery how he’s going to do.  I’m thinking this may be a long recovery.  Our anticipation is to be at CHOP for a month or so.  We’ll see. 

For additional information  here are some diagrams that show  a HLHS heart prior to surgery and then what happens in the three surgeries.  As you can see they liken it to a house so maybe that’ll help you picture what’s going on.  Thank you guys for the thoughts and prayers.

Right now I’m sitting in a kind of high fallutin country club in Columbus getting ready to play golf. Listening to the conversations and observing the attitudes of the high fallutin men around me makes me want to vomit. It makes me wonder how I got here from being a rock-climber, fly-fishing guide, singer-songwriter. I can smell the pride and arrogance. Am I more sensitive to it because I may exude the same in the same setting? I have a fear that it may be true. If I look honestly, I can be pompous, arrogant, shallow and uncaring of the true needs of this world. When I see it reflected back at me it makes me sick. Here’s to a good afternoon round of golf. Bleh.

Well since I just got my Macbook Pro, I figured I’d try out the new iMovie.  I took a few videos and a bunch of pics while we were in Philly that I wanted to combine into a short.  FYI, Sunette had a C-section, so although you can see the doctors pull Elliot out, there is no blood or any "educational" aspects in the video. 

I know that many have dog-cussed the new iMovie, versus the previous version.  I have to say that it was extremely easy to create this video.  Maybe I’m just used to the tooth pulling that comes with trying to do the same thing on a PC.  Honestly, I finished this up in about 30 minutes. 

It’s been a long time coming. I’ve spoken about it often. I’ve driven my wife crazy. And I’ve been saving my pennies.

On Wednesday I finally got my Macbook Pro. After a year of waiting, I made the jump from my PC laptop to the Mac platform and I am so stoked.

Now before somebody yells, no I didn’t spend Elliot’s college fund, or the money we’ve set aside for deductibles and medical bills. This was a blend of saving and me begging.

So for those in the Mac camp, it’s good to finally be here. For those in the Windows camp…see you soon.

This Sunday Sunette and I took some family photos, since it was gorgeous and we had Elliot off oxygen for a few minutes.  I wanted to get Los’ buddy Daley Hake for a photo shoot, but we decided to postpone it until Elliot is a little more interactive, maybe we can hook up after the first of the year.  We were trying to get one good shot of the family for our thank you cards which will go out this week.  The first one is what we went with. 

Well the webernets are down at the house and I can’t get to Typepad from work, IT lock down. Some quick ponts:
1. My life has changed. Duh, you’d say, but I mean the change equates to noise in my house. My house is loud now when Iget home, and loud at 2:30am. Loud.
2. I gotta get back in shape. 3 months of Hospital & Fast food don’t sit well.
3. I ordered my Mac. Yep, all 15.4″, 2.4ghz, 200gb hd and 2gbs of Ram worth. Now I’m reduced to checking the order status page once an hour, and it’s not supposed to ship for 2 weeks. Sheesh.

“Ch-ch-ch-changes”

I find myself on this rapid decent into Apple Fanboi status and I don’t own my Mac yet.  Here’s just one more thing that made the slope that much mo’ slippey.  One of my side businesses is music production.  I have been using a PC for years in that line of work, using the recording software Cubase.  The new version of Cubase runs for $999.  Well I’m moving to a Macbook Pro, and figured while I was at it, might as well move from Cubase to Apple’s Logic software.  Logic is extremely powerful and full-featured.  Wouldn’t you know, right before I’m getting ready to get a Mac, Apple releases an update to their Logic line, Logic Studio 8.  It includes a host of new features, new instruments, new "bunch of stuff", and….wait for it…….they cut the price in half.  Yep.  It went f
rom $999 to $499.  I’m not sure what kind of business plan that is, but I like it.  No, I don’t just like it, I love it.  Here’s me slipping. 

Elliot was discharged from Egleston Children’s Hospital Thursday evening after a 3 week stay.  He had all kinds of little challenges while he was there, from his O2 sats bottoming out to blood in his stool and all the other fun stuff.  We’re finally back home, for at least the next four weeks, when he’ll head back up to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) for the 2nd stage of his HLHS repair.  We might be in the hospital come Christmas time, but we’re hoping we can get in and get out. 

Unfortunately blog posts have been slow in coming, and probably not very entertaining.  The blog was a casualty from all of everything that’s been going on, coupled with very limited access to a computer that can reach the typepad site.  I’ve tried from the Blackberry and it’s just no fun.

So…I wish I had more of a purpose behind this post, but it’s another boring, quick update on where we are.  At Home, which is good.